Pelotonia: A fundraiser, sure, but it's a whole lot more

Thursday

Aug 9, 2012 at 12:01 AMAug 9, 2012 at 2:52 PM

Before Pelotonia, Tim Madison owned a bike for cruising the neighborhood - but not, as he says, a bike. To support a neighbor who had lost his wife to cancer, the Bexley resident bought his first road bicycle for the inaugural fundraiser yet still didn't see himself becoming an avid cyclist.

Amy Saunders, The Columbus Dispatch

Before Pelotonia, Tim Madison owned a bike for cruising the neighborhood — but not, as he says, a bike.

To support a neighbor who had lost his wife to cancer, the Bexley resident bought his first road bicycle for the inaugural fundraiser yet still didn’t see himself becoming an avid cyclist.

His hard-and-fast rules: no jerseys, no clip pedals and, especially, no spandex.

Before Pelotonia, cycling was unfamiliar to Madison, as it was to many other central Ohioans.

But now, four years into the event, many people who didn’t know what a peloton is have donated to one.

The lime-green arrows on cars and storefronts need no explanation, the “One Goal” messages on yard signs and T-shirts no clarification.

The result of such quick buy-in from the Columbus community and beyond: Pelotonia has raised nearly $35?million ($9.6?million and counting in 2012) for the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.

This year, participation has surpassed 6,100 — a field that’s more than 1,100 riders larger than last year’s and larger than that of the 33-year-old Boston-area event on which Pelotonia was modeled (although, with a goal this year of $36 million, the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge raises more money).

Madison, who was initially unsure what a road bike entailed, now is addicted to riding (and sympathetic to spandex). The same holds true for many of his teammates on Team Bexley, with Pelotonia having spurred most of the 89 members to take up cycling.

On Saturday and Sunday, Madison will pedal the longest distance offered by Pelotonia: a combined 180 miles from Columbus to Gambier and back.

“It’s a sport I plan on doing the rest of my life,” said Madison, 47. “It’s an incredibly life-altering experience to ride in Pelotonia — and I think people know that, people sense that and people want to be part of it.”

New riders in Pelotonia, along with health and lifestyle factors, have helped increase the popularity of cycling in central Ohio in recent years, said Bryan Saums, program manager of the advocacy group Consider Biking.

Although cyclists are difficult to count, he sees evidence of the growing interest virtually everywhere: on roads and crowded bike trails and in membership to biking organizations, participation in organized rides and business at area bike shops.

“Bikes are now so much more visible in the community,” said Stuart Hunter, owner of roll:, a bike store with three locations that entered the Columbus market in 2005. “Pelotonia has been part of raising the profile.”

Thousands of cyclists have joined co-workers in joining Pelotonia, with the peloton from Limited Brands consisting of 3,000 people (counting the “virtual” participants, who raise money but don’t ride).

For the first time, Express has formed a peloton. Most of the company’s 59 riders are new to the sport, and some, including Jasmine Ransom, hadn’t ridden a bike since childhood.

Thinking she would struggle to cover more than a few miles, Ransom felt encouraged when her 8 miles easily turned into 12, and 12 to 15. On Saturday, she’ll ride 50 miles to New Albany in honor of a friend fighting brain cancer.

“I want to bike as much as possible; I’m absolutely in love with it,” said Ransom, 29, of the East Side. “It’s easy on your body; it’s relaxing. I love being outdoors, the fresh air. … It’s really a joy to train.”

Huntington’s peloton, which had 55 riders in 2009, grew by hundreds the following year after the company’s central Ohio employees heard a compelling presentation about the event during a meeting at Nationwide Arena.

As a busy vice president with three young children (and no bike), Beth Alloway still wasn’t interested. Yet, in the ensuing weeks, she heard so much about the event from co-workers and friends that she decided to join them , telling her husband, “This Pelotonia thing, it’s not going away.”

Alloway has since become the person who can’t stop talking about Pelotonia — how inspiring it is to hear the cheers and see the signs of those with connections to cancer.

To train, she hits the road at sunrise, sometimes coordinating group rides.

“It’s become something I’m very passionate about,” said Alloway, 36, of Westerville, who will ride the 100 miles to Gambier. “It’s crazy, the change it has had in my life.”

The 2012 Huntington peloton consists of more than 1,300 participants, including the CEO and 200 employees from offices in other cities. Employees participate in fundraising bake sales and pancake breakfasts and, when they log onto the internal website, read stories of how co-workers have been touched by cancer.

“Pelotonia has become a part of everyone’s workday,” said Christina Brown, the company’s Pelotonia chairwoman this year. “It’s become a part of our culture.”

The galvanizing nature of the event is exactly what Daniel Rosenthal and others had hoped for when they worked to introduce the fundraiser to Columbus.

“We had the goal — and still have the goal — of raising enough money to change the course of cancer,” said Rosenthal, chairman of the Pelotonia board of directors. “And that’s what we’re doing: The Pelotonia movement will change the course of cancer.”

Yet the speedy success of the event has exceeded founders’ expectations, he said.

“Could we have predicted 6,200 riders in year four? No. Not in our wildest dreams.”

Of course, a major motivation for new Pelotonia riders remains the original one.

First-time participant Heather Wilcox, 32, will bike to New Albany as her husband, Ross, continues treatment for a rare and cancerous brain tumor. The Blacklick couple had been married for four months when Ross, 31, learned the cause of his occasional dizziness: a tumor the size of a lemon.

Doctors removed most of the mass but anticipate that the cancer will return. In the meantime, Heather’s peloton — Ross’s Redeemers — will raise money for the research she hopes will cure him.

The four-rider peloton has exceeded Ross’s fundraising goal of $10,000, having received donations from people the participants don’t know.

“It helps lift his spirits,” his wife said, “and it makes him feel like he’s contributing.”

That feeling — that people can take action toward ending cancer — has been driving the success of Pelotonia, said founder Tom Lennox, a survivor of colon cancer.

“People are getting into cycling in this community because they are committed to curing cancer,” he said. “And the bike is the means to get there.”

asaunders@dispatch.com

@amyksaunders

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